1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to the manufacture of electronic printed circuit boards and the installation of edge connectors on such boards. In particular, a method and apparatus are provided for installing edge connectors on printed circuit boards as an integral part of the process of mounting electronic components on the printed circuit boards.
2. Discussion of the Related Art
FIG. 1 illustrates a prior art printed circuit (PC) board edge connector installation. PC board 10 has an upper surface 22, a lower surface 24, a plurality of component pads 22 and a plurality of connector pads 12, 12a. The component pads 22 are for attachment, e.g. by soldering, of components 20 to the conductive components of the PC board. The connector pads are for attaching a connector to the conductive components of the PC board. A connector may provide male-type pins or female-type sockets for connection of the PC board to other PC boards or other devices. There are typically a plurality of connector pads aligned adjacent an edge of PC board 10, with one pad corresponding to each pin (or socket) of the connector. The connector pads may be located on one or both surfaces 22, 24 of PC board 10.
The prior art edge connector as shown (male-type) comprises pins 18, 18a inserted through insulating carrier 16. The tails (shown to the right) of pins 18, 18a are typically intended to be inserted into holes in another PC board and secured thereto, e.g. by soldering. The contact heads 14, 14a of pins 18, 18a protrude from insulating carrier 16 opposite the tails of the pins. Contact heads 14, 14a are configured and positioned to grasp or pinch the connector pads 12, 12a when the edge of PC board 10 is inserted into the gap between the contact heads 14, 14a of the connector. Contact heads 14, 14a of pins 18, 18a are typically soldered to the connector pads 12, 12a by any of several techniques that are well known in the art.
Installing an edge connector as shown in FIG. 1 requires an extra, time consuming, labor-intensive step in the process of manufacturing a complete PC board assembly that includes such an edge connector. All of the other components can be mounted on the PC board in an automated manner, such as by "pick-and-place" machines, and then soldered onto the board in a relatively continuous, well known manner. It was not heretofore possible to install edge connector components as an integral step in the same automated process used to mount the electronic components on a PC board. Because two separate steps were required, first installing the electronic components and then installing the connector, a manufacturer would often make a batch of boards before beginning the connector installation process. Because the boards often could not be tested until the connections were established, sometimes entire batches of defective boards were manufactured and not detected until the connector installation process was started. Even without defects, the process of installing the prior art edge connector added a relatively expensive step to the overall manufacturing process.